Objectives

The main objective of GoodBerry is to provide necessary knowledge and procedures to facilitate the development of highly productive and top quality berry fruits, even under multiple suboptimal growth conditions, at competitive costs. The use of novel approaches for genetic improvement of berries in different environments is absent in current breeding programs - caused by the genetic complexity of these species and the complex plant-environment interaction and particular management practices. Thus, GoodBerry applies new molecular tools and generations of newly characterized populations.

Activities

The GoodBerry project is based on an integrative multi-actor approach, from cultivation techniques to molecular studies, aiming at the development and validation of a range of tools to improve competitiveness of the European berry production, and eventually the attraction and confidence of consumers. The selection of the model species can be considered as strategic since strawberry is the most important berry crop in Europe and the production of raspberry and blackcurrant are increasing strongly in recent years.

The project will apply the most recent technical advances in: The identification of berry germplasm exhibiting advantageous balance of production vs nutritional quality throughout the EU, the search of innovative production systems to maintain high yield in a range of European-wide environments, the development of standardized and reliable analytical tools to evaluate berry production and fruit quality.

The multidisciplinary, collaborative project is based on complementary expertise and skills of internationally recognized berry research institutions, and highly involved key berry SMEs who will combine their effort to secure the robustness of the results.